`I thought, Oh my God, this is it.´ Panic and terror in Hawaii as missile alert sent in error(The Star Food)

14 january 2018 00:52:40

HONOLULU—A push alert that warned of a ballistic missile heading straight for Hawaii and sent residents into a full-blown panic Saturday was issued by mistake, state emergency officials said.The emergency alert, which was sent to cellphones just before 8:10 a.m., said in all caps, “Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.” The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency tweeted there was no threat about 10 minutes after the initial alert, but that didn’t reach people who aren’t on the social media platform. A revised alert informing of the “false alarm” didn’t reach phones until 38 minutes later, according to the time stamp on images people shared on social media.Agency spokesperson Richard Repoza confirmed it was a false alarm and said the agency is trying to determine what happened.And what exactly happened wasn’t clear to anybody — House Speaker Scott Saiki said someone pushed the wrong button, and the White House said the episode was “purely a state exercise.” The incident prompted defence agencies including the Pentagon and the U.S. Pacific Command to issue the same statement, that they had “detected no ballistic missile threat to Hawaii.”But for nearly 40 minutes, it seemed like the world was about to end in Hawaii, an island paradise already jittery over the threat of nuclear-tipped missiles from North Korea. Read more:Analysis: Get used to it. Under Trump, the threat of nuclear war is the new normalExplaining Trump’s ‘nuclear button’ threat. (For starters, there’s no button)Opinion | Kim Jong Un is in the nuclear drivers’ seatOn the H-3, a major highway north of Honolulu, vehicles sat empty after drivers left them to run to a nearby tunnel after the alert showed up, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported. People flocked to shelters, crowding highways in scenes of terror and helplessness. “I was runn ...